“A startling one-quarter of all U.S. workers need a
license to do their jobs, according to the White House report, a five-fold
increase since the 1950s. Among those most affected by this situation are
military families, who move frequently from state to state, only to find that a
non-military spouse can no longer work without spending months qualifying for a
new license. Licensing also inhibits many ex-offenders from rejoining the
workforce because they lack the requisite clean police record. Overall,
unlicensed workers earn 10 percent to 15 percent less than similarly
skilled licensed workers, and licensing laws raise consumer prices, with no dis­cern­ible
increase in the general quality of goods and services, according to research
summarized in the report.”

The editorial says
that while some occupational licenses help protect public safety and health, others
can be particularly burdensome when applied to specific occupations in a
protectionist manner, like florist licenses or funeral-attendant licenses. The
editorial also considers how historic economists and various political
ideologies have questioned the costs and benefits of restrictive occupational
licensing:

“[T]he report’s authors stand on the shoulders of not
only [Adam] Smith and [Milton] Friedman but also researchers at think tanks
ranging from the libertarian Institute for Justice to the liberal Brookings
Institution, who
have previously documented the often contradictory and unjustifiable rules that
require, say, scrap metal recyclers to get a license in one state but not in
another — or oblige aspiring members of the same licensed trade to pay wildly
varying fees and spend wildly varying amounts of time studying depending on
where they live.”

On July 31, 2015,
I wrote a blog entitled “Maryland’s
Occupational Licensing Regime Hurts the Poor.” In it, I referred to the White
House report in discussing how restricted competition under Maryland’s occupational
licensing regime leads to increased prices and unemployment, which disproportionately
burden poor Maryland residents.

As my blog,
the White House report, and the
Washington Post editorial
conclude, eliminating discriminatory and protectionist occupational licenses would
enhance consumer welfare and promote economic growth. This is an issue on which
those with various political ideologies ought to agree.